


you have to ask yourself why

by bmblb



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Character Study, Dubious mixing of comics- and movieverse, Gen, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Red Room (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 11:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17182220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmblb/pseuds/bmblb
Summary: Natalia doesn't question anything she's told to do until she meets the Winter Soldier.





	you have to ask yourself why

Natalia Romanova has learned not to question the authority around her in her years serving the Red Room. As that is, when a new instructor abruptly replaces the one that she’s just come to tolerate, Natalia keeps her mouth shut and does as told.

Natalia has taken part in many missions. She has been acquainted with death for so long she can no longer remember her first assignment, so she does not find the occasional mysteriously disappearing instructor all that mysterious—either an enemy of the union has taken them out, or, much worse by far, they reveal themself as a traitor and they’re dealt with appropriately. She doesn’t ask about it.

At the age of twelve, she’s become one of the most prized soldiers for her beloved _Sovetsky Soyuz_ , and that’s not something she’s willing to lose over a childish outburst or intentional talk-out-of-turn. She treasures the admiration from the younger girls and the occasional vocalized approval from her overseers. The Red Room program has never given her reason to question anything around her, and she has no intention to start now.

However, intentionally or not, Natalia can’t help but wonder about this new instructor. Her silent inquiries are obviously shared by the select few girls who have arrived early to the studio, whispering amongst themselves as the man stands with his arms crossed in the corner of the room. There are several armed guards posted six meters to his left.

The man seems to be uninterested in the young girls that are all so unsubtly curious about him, so Natalia took a moment to observe him from the corner of her eye. His dark hair is long enough to brush his shoulders. He has brown eyes that somehow manage to appear dull and cold—uncomfortably reflective of her own. Most notably, one of his crossed arms seems to gleam silver in the dim fluorescent lights; it strikes her so suddenly that she can't help but stare openly at the legend before her. The man who’s responsible for many high-profile kills, but has not been active since his last, and, coincidentally, latest and greatest mission for their homeland—the assassination of the president of the United States two years ago.

She looks around, finding that she is definitely the only one who has realized it so far. The Winter Soldier is a hero to every girl within the Red Room program, whether they be seven or twenty-seven. He’s proven himself in a way they could only hope to: he’s never once failed a mission. It’s common knowledge that he works for Red Room, but no one in charge speaks of him unless it’s done so vaguely.

Somewhere on an overhead speaker, Prokofeiv’s _Dance of the Knights_ begins to play quietly, a crackling sound that indicates the lesson’s beginning. Within seconds, the mirror-framed studio is flooded with eighteen more girls, atop the six that are already present.

The Soldier steps into the light, and every single student in the room quickly picks up on what Natalia already has. The atmosphere is buzzing with excitement and wonder as he unfolds his mismatched arms and gives them a once-over.

“For the next month,” he begins, “I will teach important skills and techniques that will assist you on missions of stealth and direct combat.” His voice is dull and to the point, even more so than the most serious of instructors; it’s almost as if he’s reciting a script. “After the month is over, three students who exhibit the greatest ability to apply the skills taught to them will be selected to continue training to a more extensive level.”

The girls begin whispering amongst themselves until one of the guards shushes them. How strange, Natalia thinks. They act as if the Soldier isn’t the one in charge here.

He begins their training with instruction on the very basics of combat stance, something Natalia has gone over many times throughout her life already; only a few girls, as young as seven, that seem to be new to anything he’s demonstrating. Despite this, every student in the room is starstruck by the man before her.

After approximately an hour and a half, they’re beginning to delve into basic hand-to-hand combat. The Soldier seems to be moving and speaking more naturally overall; he even compliments the efforts of some of the younger girls, much to their delight. It’s rare for any of them to receive praise from an instructor, more-so if they are any less than perfect.

Abruptly, one of the guards declares their dismissal. The Soldier immediately tenses and stands straight from where he’s bent to help a girl with her footing, arms falling to his sides. His face is once again blank, and he stares above their heads at the wall. When no girl shows haste in filing out of the room, the other guard barks out an order for them to move along. They all quicken their pace.

Natalia pointedly heads to the back of the group, head turning slightly towards where the Soldier is standing. The guards are walking up to him. As she walks out the door, one of them takes him by the shoulder and orders the Soldier to follow them.

 

***

 

Over time, the Winter Soldier goes through many aspects of combat, and later begins addressing missions involving stealth. Throughout the three months he spends teaching the twenty-five of them, only once is something outside the topic of their training mentioned. 

One of the girls, eleven years old and still astonished by his presence two months into their lessons, asks the Soldier a question about his most recent known mission—the assassination of the U.S. president two years ago—after a demonstration of appropriate sniper rifle wielding.

He looks at her blankly before the strangest, most unexpected thing happens: a look of sheer horror flashes on his face. It’s gone as soon as it appears, though, because the guards yell for them to return to their training before he could reply. After this, no one asks the Soldier about his own missions. Natalia can’t help but be curious about what that reaction could mean. She watches him closely from then on, but he reveals nothing else that she can catch. Everyone else seems content to pretend it never happened.

 

***

 

Today is the last day the Winter Soldier will be training them all together. Natalia feels confident with what she’s done in the three months of instruction, so she isn’t fretting too much. The same can not be said about others within the group; many of them are exuding nervous energy as they enter the room, no matter how outwardly confident they all seem to try to act.

Tchaikovsky’s _Valse Sentimentale_ begins playing over the speakers, and the Soldier steps forward on queue as he does every day. He glances over them, quick and calculating.

“We will be reviewing our previous lessons,” he declares. “Today’s lesson will be extended for this purpose. Before you are all dismissed, those who will be carrying on to further lessons will be made aware.” The girls of the room cast looks at each other, emotions a mix of anxiety, excitement, and determination. They’re put into pairs of two before beginning. Natalia is paired up with Valeriya, a slim, blonde girl of age seventeen.

The pairings are definitely purposeful. Valeriya and her have similar strengths and weaknesses when it comes to both combat and weapons-handling, and it is not above Natalia to admit that those weaknesses are few and far between. They’ve worked three missions together before, one of which was just the two of them—they were enough to make Natalia aware of Valeriya’s disdain for her.

The Soldier orders them into fighting stance, and Valeriya complies like a promise, eyes boring into Natalia’s own. It goes on like this: a punch that’s blocked, a grab and throw that has Natalia’s back hitting the cold floor without remorse. She jumps to her feet and lands a kick that has Valeriya reeling, giving Natalia the opportunity to return the favor of slamming her onto the ground.

When they’re told to stop, the two of them are left panting and glaring. Valeriya’s hand is twitching at her side, most likely wanting to cradle the bruise starting to form on her jaw. As the Soldier walks by, his gaze lingers coolly upon them, a calculating look in his eyes. For the first time in the past three months, it makes Natalia feel like she needs to prove herself; a sliver of anxiety works itself free in her mind.

He passes out rubber knives and tells them to aim for vital points. Natalia lands three more hits than Valeriya does. They continue with various offensive and defensive weapons and moves for hours, swinging and blocking until their arms ache and they’re covered in sweat. At the end, they hand in their training weapons and stand in one group. The Soldier stands in front of them, arms crossed. “After deliberating performances from today and the past three months,” he says, “I’ve selected the three who will continue their training under my instruction.”

He scans them over once more, before declaring, “Chernova, Yemelina, and Romanova. The rest of you are dismissed.” There are soft, disappointed grumbles as the majority of the girls leave. Valeriya is shooting a venomous look at Natalia, but she’s too silently relieved to provide a biting response.

The three of them—Oksana Chernova, eighteen, Sofia Yemelina, fourteen, and herself, the youngest at newly twelve—all gather closer to each other and the Winter Soldier, the room suddenly near empty. Natalia is thankful Oksana and Sofia are the ones left; they aren’t friends by far (friends are for Saturday morning cartoons and fairy tales), but she’s never had any grievances with either of them.

“Lessons will be given individually,” he says. “They start in two days. Chernova at 0800 hours, Yemelina at 1200 hours, and Romanova at 1600 hours.” He looks between them before hurriedly adding, “Dismissed.”

He seems to have started doing that towards the end of their lessons lately, as if to stop the guards from saying it for him. Natalia would have to be blind not to notice his blatant fear of them. However, she can’t seem to decipher the reason just yet. She hasn’t had a single conversation with the Winter Soldier in their three months of training, but that’s going to be unavoidable now.

Though Natalia normally ignores anything strange and unusual that seems to happen in the Red Room, she finds that this is something she just can’t let go. She wonders what these guards do that causes the Winter Soldier, a boogeyman little assassin girls worship, to fear them.

 

***

 

The winter sun is already setting when Natalia walks into the training center. She’s five minutes early. The Winter Soldier is standing against the mirrored wall, looking down at his left hand—a shining silver, with the dexterity of muscle and joints that she’s never known a prosthetic to have before—as it moves in slow, deliberate circles, turning at the wrist over and over.

He senses her entrance; she can see the way he subtly tenses before going back to a casual position. There are no guards in the room currently, so Natalia assumes that means that they will be alone for this segment of training. It makes her feel less uneasy and she supposes that should be strange; the Soldier is an operative that strikes fear into the heart of enemies, but so far the only ones who seem to pose a threat are the guards who usually accompany him.

“Natalia,” the Soldier greets. He gestures for her to stand in front of where he is against the wall. She complies, leaning against it slightly. His posture is relaxed. He says, “We should begin,” but doesn’t look away from his wrist.

“Yes,” Natalia agrees—and without any warning, the Soldier is moving to connect his metal fist with her stomach. She narrowly avoids it, sharply sliding left. The heels of her shoes make a sharp noise as they scrape against the floor.

The Soldier says, “Always be prepared for a fight. Never let your guard down.” He doesn’t let up as he speaks; Natalia dodges a kick to the sternum more expertly this time. When he attempts to grab her, she drops to the floor, swinging her leg against his to knock him down.

He stumbles and hits the mirrored wall. “Good,” he commends. “I would’ve fallen if you would’ve put more strength behind it. Never hold back, not even in training.” They continue on. Natalia lands a hard blow at his stomach, winding him. The heel of his boot collides with her right thigh, knocking her backward. She grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him lower, climbing onto his back and putting him into a chokehold with her legs. He throws her off and she hits the ground. All the while, a running commentary on her skills prepares her more for the repeated attacks.

They’re stopping as abruptly as they started. Natalia’s breaths come harsher but the Soldier seems as unaffected as ever. “Good,” he concedes. “Could be better.”

She frowns but nods anyway. “I will not fail you next time.” The Soldier flinches slightly; another strange and negative response to something that didn’t seem that important.

“You are still better than most,” the Soldier says, and that makes Natalia’s chest flutter. She knows that already, but it’s still good to hear. “With time, you’ll be the best.” He holds out a hand, pulling her off the ground. He says, “Are you aware of what we’re working towards here?”

Natalia remains carefully blank. “How do you mean?”

“Why you and the other girls are being trained distinctly separate from the group. Do you know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

The Soldier hums. “I don’t either. Not really.” He adjusts the fingerless gloves on his hands. “I think it might be a mission. They don’t tell me these things until it’s time for someone to die.”

Natalia blinks at the flippancy of his words. “They don’t tell us these things, either,” she admits. “I’m sure you know this, though. Were you born to serve our motherland as well?”

“I don’t know,” he says, smiling bitterly.

She’s asking before she can think not to: “How would you not know?”

The Soldier looks around suddenly, as if he’s afraid they’re being watched. Discontented, he leans in and says, “They took these things away from me. The few things I _do_ know, I’m not supposed to.”

Before she can analyze those words, the Soldier is tensing in a familiar way, and Natalia is dodging a clenched fist aimed for her stomach, and they’re back at it again.

 

***

 

Asking has become a game between Natalia and the Winter Soldier. For ever answer she provides, she is allowed a question, and vice versa; the rules are agreed upon even though they’ve never discussed it.

“Where were you born,” Natalia asks, “if not here in Moscow?” They are outside and alone. The ground is white and it makes their steps slow and thick as they move. She is holding a sniper rifle, poised to shoot a red and white target eighty meters out.

“Not sure,” the Soldier murmurs; his usual answer. But then, a surprise: “I don’t think I’m a Soviet.”

Natalia holds her tongue. She cannot ask for more information yet; it isn’t her turn. She pulls the trigger and it hits dead center.

As she reloads, the Soldier asks, “Who are your parents, then?” and says, “Move twenty meters back,” as he has thrice before.

“They told me my mother threw me out the window of a burning building in Stalingrad,” she says. “She perished in the fire. A soldier found me and took me to the Red Room. A better life than one in an orphanage, I’m sure he thought.” Adjusting her position, she adds, “I never knew my father. My other name, Alianovna―that must belong to him.”

The Soldier doesn’t offer any condolences and for that Natalia is grateful. “Again,” the Soldier says instead. “Focus.”

Natalia takes a deep breath and looks down the scope intently, firing again; a perfect shot. “What makes you think you aren’t Russian?”

He grunts in approval. “My Russian’s learned. My first language is English. Ten meters left, ten meters back.”

Her shock is poorly concealed. Soviet Russia has found itself in the midst of an arm’s race, and if the Soldier is― “Are you American?” she blurts. They don’t ask two questions in a row, and he looks at her pointedly. As a kindness, he answers anyway.

“Maybe,” he says, then “Yes, I think I am,” then “Move.”

Natalia complies, and their game resumes again properly this time.

 

***

 

“Do you have a name?” Natalia asks before moving to tag his stomach with the pale rubber knife.

“The Winter Soldier is my name,” the Soldier reminds her as he dodges. He says, “I think I did have another one before I was brought here. I don’t know it.”

She allows herself to feel the pang of the loss the Soldier must always carry and stops. He looks at her, fondly exasperated, and stops as well; their relationship, founded upon a need to confide in someone that would not judge, allows this now. “I can give you a name,” she tells him. “Do you want one?”

“Yes,” he admits. “I do.”

“Yasha.” There’s no need to think on it; Natalia has been calling him that in her head for a month, ever since he confided in her a memory of of sitting through long services of Hebrew with his mother.

He tests the shape of it with his mouth. Finally, he says, “Yes.”

Yasha asks Natalia about recent events in the world, as he usually does now, and they return to their training, arms thrusting to land a hit and bodies twisting to avoid them.

 

***

 

When Natalia comes into the room, there are three men and a woman standing to Yasha’s right. It’s obvious the question game will not be played today.

The man beside Yasha smiles at Natalia. He has dark hair and a long, elegant face. His eyes are filled with mirth and it unnerves her. “Hello,” he greets. “We are simply here to observe. Please carry on as you usually would.” His Russian is unsure, revealing that it isn’t his mother tongue.

Yasha does not look at her and his face is blank. A mask, Natalia knows. One he cannot afford to abandon in front of their current company. Today they are not friends; they are removed instructor and diligent student. Today Yasha is the Winter Soldier and nothing more.

They don’t speak outside of occasional orders and less occasional corrections. They spar with and without weapons inside, and when they go outside she shoot targets three hundred meters from the ground. They run through everything they’ve done, and Natalia knows that this will be their last training session.

It’s an hour and a half past Natalia’s usual dismissal time when they finish. The men and the woman have not spoken a word to her or Yasha, but they whisper amongst themselves occasionally, far away enough that Natalia can’t hear them. Yasha, with his advancements that she discovered months ago, tenses at every quiet exchange.

The woman, with greying blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun and wrinkles around her mouth from years of frowning, is the one who finally talks. “We have seen what we needed to see. Thank you, Natalia. You may go.”

It’s been so long since anyone who isn’t Yasha has dismissed her. It’s obvious how much he hates it. She nods once and leaves the room swiftly, knowing well enough not to look back at where Yasha’s still standing.

 

***

 

Natalia doesn’t see Yasha for one month, three weeks and four days. No one brings him up and she doesn’t mention him either. Instead, she returns to her usual training with their old instructor, who, apparently, was not dead like Natalia has believed.

By the time she sees Yasha again, those nine months of training with him hardly feel real. Her birthday has come and gone, escorting her into teenagehood without a single present or well wish from anyone as it does every year.

She’s on her way to lunch when she’s approached by the man who spoke to her the last day of her training. He touches her shoulder from behind and she stops, turning around quickly. He’s looking at her with the same gleaming eyes as he was that day.

“Hello, Miss Natalia,” he greets, and then abruptly switches to a British English. “You speak English, yes? Forgive me, my Russian is very poor.”

“Yes,” she says in English as well. She hasn’t spoken it with a native in two years, but her lessons keep it fresh enough in her mind that she can hold a conversation.

“Wonderful. Would you mind accompanying me so that we may speak about a matter related to your lessons?”

She nods, and follows him down several hallways and into an open office room that she’s never been in. Seated at chairs in front of a long desk are all of those present for her last training session; that is, except for Yasha.

The man motions for her to sit in front of them as he joins the collective. After they’re settled, he asks, “Are you aware of the reason behind your lessons?”

“No,” she says. “I was not informed.” As per usual.

The man informs her of her mission―an infiltration, two high-profile targets in two distinct locations that must be taken out simultaneously by two people―herself and Yasha. Now she wonders what became of Sofia and Oksana, why they didn’t make the cut. The man doesn’t mention them at all, so she is left to wonder.

The mission won’t take place for another week and a half. Until then, Natalia is excused from her lessons in order to study blueprints, schedules, and tactics. The targets are Ricardo Gil Santiago, forty-nine, Portuguese diplomat, and Constança Monica Santiago, thirty-six, his wife. They will be attending a party thrown in Madrid, Spain, where Yasha and Natalia will pose as a Russian politician and his daughter.

Natalia’s glad for the assignment, both for the opportunity to see Yasha and to prove herself, and when she’s being escorted to the airport to meet with him her skin is already buzzing with pre-mission adrenaline. The woman who drove her there promptly leaves her at the gate. Natalia finds Yasha waiting and seated where they will be called to board after going through the registry.

She sits beside him wordlessly. He looks down at her out of the corner of his eye. “Natalia,” he greets, his voice raspy from what seems like disuse as if he hasn’t spoken since their last training session together.

“Yasha.” A beat. “How’s your month been?”

The corners of Yasha’s lips twitch. “Cold, damp, and tiresome. I was kept a few miles from the academy for the entirety of the time.” He glances at her again. “What have I missed?” And with that, their game of questions begins. They ask and ask until they run out of things to ask about sometime on the flight to Madrid, and then begin discussing Yasha’s vague memories and Natalia tells him some untranslatable jokes.

Upon their arrival in Madrid, they acquire their luggage and Yasha leads her to a car outside of the airport. Once they’re seated, he rolls the separating window up, blocking them off from the driver. Yasha says, “We’re going to meet with an associate of the Red Room to get the weapons. We leave to go to the party at sixteen-hundred hours. Once we arrive, we'll be granted entrance as Alex Kozlov and Maryana Kozlovna.”

He hands her a copy of the blueprint that she’d studied back at the academy, this one covered in notes from a red marker in neat Cyrillic script. She looks over it as he goes over their assignments―Natalia is responsible for Constança, who she will shadow and get alone under the guise of losing Yasha, who will take out Ricardo on Natalia’s signal. Mission parameters state that their deaths must be simultaneous and in two distinct places for reasons that have been left unspecified to both of them.

They meet to retrieve their weapons and communication devices in a shopping center parking lot in _Torrejón de Ardoz_ , hidden behind cargo trucks to avoid surveillance cameras. Natalia and Yasha take the small earpieces and test them both for distance capacity. After finding no errors, they begin to dress for the party at fifteen-hundred-thirty hours.

Natalia had the concept of modesty trained out of her as early as seven. When she starts shedding her clothes in the backseat of the car to pull on the dress provided for her she finds the fact that Yasha covers his eyes with his hands a little bizarre. Nevertheless, his respect for her privacy warms her, and she returns the favor so that he may put on the suit despite how childish it makes her feel to be covering her face with her hands.

When they climb out of the car in front of the extravagant home of some Spanish politician where the party is being hosted, they help each other smooth out their outfits and hair. Natalia tucks her knife and handgun into the strap against her leg and Yasha shoves three knives into his boots.

When they walk to the door, a man in a dark grey suit says in English, “Names, please?” and Yasha gives him their aliases. The man takes a moment to rifle through the papers on the clipboard before waving them on and telling them to have a pleasant night.

They stick together for forty-five minutes or so, Yasha drinking and mingling in feigned broken English. Natalia glues herself to his side, playing the part of shy daughter easily enough. Women come up to her to compliment her dress and coo at her and she grips Yasha’s jacket and smiles shyly. It’s easy to get away with; she looks much younger than her age, anyway.

Yasha subtly taps her shoulder twice, their agreed upon signal to move, halfway through his conversation with a French diplomat. She looks up and sees the wife of Yasha’s target and moves the moment he turns to walk away from the conversation.

Natalia follows Constança Santiago with a ten-foot buffer until they get to a part of the house where the partygoers are more sparse. She closes in on the distance when the woman stops talking to a guest and tugs on her dress.

“My father,” Natalia says in Russian. “I cannot find him.” She works up some tears for good measure, letting them fall in rivets down her cheeks.

“Oh!” Constança exclaims. “You poor thing.” She speaks in a surprising British accent, betraying Natalia’s previous belief that she was Portuguese like her husband. “Are you alright, darling?”

“Father,” Natalia whines, heavily accented English this time. “I cannot find Father.”

Constança pets Natalia’s hair. “Oh, no,” she says. “What’s your name, love?”

“Maryana.” Natalia tugs more urgently on the woman’s dress. “Please find my father.”

“Alright, Maryana,” Constança says consolingly. “Let’s go find him. He’s probably worried. Do you know where you last saw him?”

Natalia feels grateful that she asked. It’s going to make this much easier than she thought. She points through the crowd in the direction of a narrow hallway she knows the guests were avoiding.

Constança says, “Let’s go, then.” She takes Natalia’s hand and follows her lead. Natalia tugs her in the direction of the hallway, careful not to bump into any guests.

The crowd thins even more as they walk near the dark hallway beside the wide staircase leading to higher floors. “Are you sure this is where saw him last?” Constança asks, looking hesitant.

Natalia nods vigorously. “Father was looking for host,” she says. “He could not find him.” They continue to walk, and Natalia hears the crinkling static that indicates Yasha’s earpiece being turned on.

“ _Dva odinakovykh predmeta_ ,” Yasha says softly. She can hear a man’s laughter and a distant _“What does that mean?”_ in English.

The woman complies, allowing herself to be pulled into the isolated area. Natalia continues to walk until they could not be seen by anyone before stopping suddenly.

“Is this where?”

“Yes,” Natalia says, turning away from Constança to discreetly pull out her knife from under her dress. “ _Eto pravda_ ,” she says quietly to Yasha, facing Constança’s turned form and letting the knife slip out of sleeve. Then, “ _Pyat', chetyre, tri, dva, odin._ ”

Upon landing on the final number, Natalia slices across Constança’s neck with the small blade. The woman emits a strangled noise as blood immediately begins to pour in excess. She collapses, choking and gasping for moments before falling still. Her mouth is open and her eyes are wide in shock and pain.

Natalia wipes the blood off her knife and hand on the inside of her dress, revealing nothing on the already wine-colored skirt. She continues down the hall until it opens on the other side of the staircase and walks quickly to a side door that leads into the extensive garden behind the house.

There are few guests milling about the grounds and Natalia ignores them, walking past the intricately cut shrubbery and around the home to the front. She heads towards the car parked on the road where Yasha is already sitting behind the wheel. It’s different from the one that they were escorted in.

She climbs into the passenger seat and they share a grim nod. The mission is a success, and they are to arrive at a meeting point nearby to join their handlers. Yasha puts the car into drive and they take off.

 

***

 

Yasha does not head to the meeting point. Natalia doesn’t think to say anything until they begin to veer wildly off-course, breaking the silence that has blanketed over the car since she got in. “Where are you going?” she asks. She knows that the meeting point hasn’t changed; someone would have told her. _Yasha_ would have told her. 

He doesn’t answer for a few minutes, so she says, “Yasha, what is going on?”

He turns to abruptly then. “Natalia, do you know what those people did to get murdered?” He speaks harshly and she tries not to wince. He never takes that tone with her.

“No,” she says. “They didn’t tell me because I didn’t need to know in order to carry out my mission.” She pauses. “What did they do?”

Yasha scoffs. “Exactly. Does it not bother you that you don’t know why you just killed someone?”

Natalia wrinkles her nose. “That’s what I’m supposed to do,” she says. “It’s what they told us to do and I didn't need to know why.” That’s a fact burnt into their brain at a young age at the academy; all mission information is need-to-know. Reasoning is not, in fact, need-to-know.

Sighing, Yasha pulls into the parking lot of a restaurant. “You know that this is the last time you’ll see me.”

Suddenly, Natalia feels despaired. “What?” she demands. “Why?”

“I am going to be frozen again,” he answers. _Frozen_. He’s never spoken of this before, and she tells him that. “They put me into a tube and freeze my body and mind until they need me for a new mission. I was frozen before I came to the academy.”

Yasha looks at her. “It’s 1965, yeah?” She nods in affirmation. “Before the last time I was frozen, it was 1963. When I killed the president of the United States.” He says the last sentence with disgust, and Natalia is suddenly reminded of his face all those months ago when a student mentioned this mission to him; the look of horror on his face had shocked everyone in the room.

Natalia shakes her head in disbelief. “Why would they do that?”

“To keep me compliant. Before they freeze me, they will take my memories of this mission by electrocuting me. They do it every time.” Yasha looks pained. “I’ve spent so much time without being wiped that I’m starting to remember everything. I don’t know why. I’m starting to remember what I was before I worked for the Russians. They took me, Natalia. I was an American soldier in the war.”

“Which war?”

“The one after the Great War. I was in Europe fighting the Germans.”

Natalia balks. “That was twenty years ago!”

He nods and continues. “They took my memories of the war,” he says. “And of my family, friends, and life. The Germans took me and they told me I was to work for HYDRA.”

Natalia learned about HYDRA many years ago. They were a section of the Nazi party dedicated to finding a way to victory with science and dangerous experiments. “The Germans?”

“Yes,” Yasha says. “They took me and made me kill for them. I had no idea who I was. I guess they sold me to the Russians after the war was over, and I began to kill for them instead.” He glares out the window. In flawless English, Yasha says, “They brainwashed you, too, Natalia. You’re just a kid. It’s awful.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asks in English as well.

“So that you question everything from now on. Everything they’ve ever told you before and everything they tell you in the future.” He smiles a little at her. “Like the question game. Ask and ask all you can, then decide if it’s all worth it.” He pulls out of the parking spot and turns back onto the road, going back the way to the meeting point.

They don’t speak for a moment. This time, Yasha’s the one that breaks the silence. “I’d say I’ll miss you, Talia,” he sighs, “but I won’t remember you.”

Hesitantly, she takes his right hand from the wheel and holds it between her own. “I’ll remember you, though.” She leans against him, head resting against his forearm. “I’ll remember you enough for the two of us, Yasha.”

He squeezes her hands, smiling slightly again. “I think it’s funny you decided to call me that,” he says. “I’m pretty sure my name used to be James.”

Natalia grins and nudges him. “That’s the name in English, yeah? I got it right.”

Yasha laughs at her. “Of course you did,” he says, teasing and sounding happier than he ever has in front of her. They spend the rest of the drive in amiable silence, and she reluctantly pulls away from his grasp when the handlers come into view. Yasha pats her leg comfortingly and shapes his face into something blank and unfeeling. She tries to as well.

There are separate cars waiting for them when they arrive. Yasha spares her one last glance behind the handler’s backs before he gets in; a soft, reassuring smile that makes Natalia’s heart feel heavy instead of light.

She knows it’s the last time she’ll see it.

 

***

 

When Natalia gets back to the Red Room, she reports her mission and its success. They don’t thank her, or tell her that she did well. They just nod and tell her to continue with her lessons starting tomorrow.

When she goes to sleep that night, she dreams about Yasha. In the dream, they don’t ever go back to their handlers―they drive and drive until they’re out of the country, and they fly to America with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

 

***

 

It’s 2001 when Natalia defects from the Red Room. She is much, much older than she looks, and she is very tired. Her mission is intercepted by a man who introduces himself as Clint, and when he asks her to leave with him instead of killing her like she expects, she takes his offered hand. When Clint asks her name, she tells him it’s Natasha Romanoff. 

When she arrives in New York, Natasha’s given the first gift she’s ever received: free will. The moment she’s left alone, Natasha thinks about Yasha for the first time in ten years. She wonders if he’s still alive, or frozen, or his own person, somewhere far away from Russia and his handlers. She cries for him as much as she cries for herself.

If Natasha had never met Yasha, she would’ve shot Clint when he asked her to defect. She would still be in Russia. She wouldn’t be free.

**Author's Note:**

> all mistakes are my own, whether they be grammar, formatting, or terrible google translate choices.


End file.
